the economy pretty fast" if lawmakers don't settle the fiscal cliff issue. he's chief economist of moody's analytics. so mark falling off the fiscal cliff means bad things. how bad? >> it could be quite bad, susie. i don't think it's if we get into january and we haven't settled this but if house makers haven't nailed this down by early february, i think stock investors, bond investors will start to get very very nervous, start selling, risky businesses pull back and by the end of february when we start approaching the ceiling for the debt limit, i think we'll be back in recession. it will be a fairly severe recession. so policy makers have a few weeks but not much more than that. they have to get this together. >> susie: some people are saying that today's jobs report is very encouraging and that you can look at this as a way that maybe the economy can handle some stuff belt tightening because things are looking a little bit better. how do you think the various parties, republican and democrats will handle this jobs report in their fiscal cliff negotiations